Create a Sense of Confidence and Competitiveness with all our Athletes

We have many ways in which we achieve this, but we always start off with a focus on movement skills. In most team sports the most “athletic” players are the ones who can anticipate situations quickly, react instinctively, change direction efficiently and accelerate explosively. These outcomes need to be the focus of our exercise progressions. But it all starts with automating movement skills, enhancing rhythm and building stability in simple change of direction (deceleration, transition and acceleration) patterns. This builds confidence… Confidence in simple drills leads to more effort in each drill… More effort leads to greater improvements… And as each player improves, confidence increases and the cycle continues to spiral upward towards greater things.

From a movement perspective, we start off with a focus on positioning (stability) for power and speed. Can we get into positions that enable us to get out quickly and efficiently with rhythmic confidence. Here is an example:

The image above shows exactly what we are referring to, a player that can quickly get into a position from which she can accelerate out with rhythm and explosiveness. Look at the player in white in the second picture. Notice how she is balanced, slight forward torso lean, most of her weight on the inside (left) leg, and ready to sprint. This position looks exactly like a lunge position, and this player has done thousands of lunges in our program. It’s a position in which she feels confident and can explosively accelerate out of in any direction.

As coaches, we need to develop simple strength and power in positions that build confidence and translate to athletic outcomes. We then need to develop exercises and drills that combine athletic movement with these positioning and strength techniques. Here is a short video of some of these exercises that all revolve around this particular position.